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Profile: Mark Haddon: The curious incident of the author in the limelight

For years Mark Haddon ached with a sense of failure. He was a middle-ranking children’s author with five unpublished adult novels that were so “breathtakingly bad” that he was ashamed of them. Not many people had ever heard of him and fewer seemed to care.

Last week the 41-year-old author was still pinching himself after his unprepossessing story about a disabled boy in Swindon, entitled The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, rocketed through the 1m sales barrier barely three months after its paperback release.

Suddenly he has acquired the stature of J K Rowling and Philip Pullman as another bestselling author bestriding the adult and children’s markets. Haddon’s eloquent and funny story, narrated by an autistic teenager, has vacuumed up 17 literary awards, has been sold in more than 30 countries and is to become a Hollywood film. Its wit and brilliance have captivated readers.